Best and Worst of the Week.

By JAMILA RIZVI

Have you missed me? Who am I kidding, of course you have. But for those who didn’t notice that I was supposed to be being missed (i.e. all of you except the prime candidate for Mamamia’s most loyal reader, my mum) I’ve been on holidays the past few weeks.

And just like Psy only dances Gangnam-stye, I only holiday Jamila-style. I’m not a fan of rest and relaxation because I tend to find both rest and relaxation rather dull. So, my holiday was more 6-cities-across-3-continents-to-see-12-friends-in-14-days than lie on a beach with a magazine.  In other words it was a total train wreck.

The ‘worst’ for my holiday? It’s a toss up between my inability to read 24 hour time (everyone mixes up 17.00 and 7.00pm right?) resulting in an excessively expensive replacement ticket for a missed flight, getting so desperately ill in South East Asia that my doctor friend Bella was forced to go in search of an at-home IV kit (I’m so Hollywood) and the dramatic car accident on a highway just outside of Milan.

But the best? The best was not a toss up, the best was not a maybe, the best was not an either or. The best was 100 per cent clear. Because… I think I had a full on Oprah moment y’all!

You know the one: the magical ‘aha’, everything suddenly slams into perspective, my life makes perfect sense, I’ve saved myself from decades of questioning and am totes prepared to start penning my prolific memoirs kinda thing. My Eat, Pray, Love on speed and without the scary silent period in the Ashram.

You see, despite having a wonderfully magnificent holiday, the best bit by far, was coming home.

And I’ve never felt like that before. Previous holidays have always left me wanting more.

There has been something really special about having a couple of weeks living with no care or responsibility and knowing the whole time that what I was most looking forward to was going back to that care and that responsibility.

This week, one of my favourite Mamamia writers, Bec Sparrow wrote a terribly moving post about how we always like to show our best selves to the world and sometimes we need to be honest about our lives being imperfect.

Well, I’ll be the first to throw my hand up in the air and admit that my life is far from perfect. But despite its imperfections, I wanted to come home to it and was actually bubbling over with excitement as I waited in the line at customs (and not just because I sneaked some unwrapped chocolate into the country, didn’t declare and got away with it. Booya).

My Oprah moment was this: The fact I was so eager to return to ‘normal life’ means that ‘normal’ life – despite all the lonely bits, the bits that hurt, the disappointments and the frustrations – must actually be pretty rad.

How has your week been? What have been the best and the worst moments?